Hot tubs, spas, swimming pools, water fountains, and the like often have pressure jets that shoot jets of water into a water basin or pool area. Such pressure jets are often clustered for therapeutic purposes, such as in a hot tub, or aesthetic purposes, such as in a water fountain. When clustered for therapeutic purposes, as in a hot tub or spa, the pressure jets are often positioned in close proximity to one another so as to shoot massaging jets of water against the major muscle groups of a person sitting in the hot tub.
It will be appreciated that plumbing these closely spaced pressure jet clusters has been challenging since multiple elbows, nozzles, pipes, reducers, unions, and the like must be joined together in a relatively small and confined space. The use of plastic or polymeric basins in hot tubs and spas has facilitated fabrication of these tightly packed, therapeutic pressure jet clusters because flexible plastic piping can be used to reduce or eliminate elbows, reducers, unions and the like. Unfortunately, this type of piping can be easily damaged and has not been practical for use in hot tubs and pools having liners made from an aggregate material such as gunite, shotcrete, plaster, cement, or the like.
Hot tubs, spas, pools, and the like with basins made from such aggregate materials are often more durable than basins made from polymer materials. However, these types of basins often permanently fix the plumbing of the tub or pool and surround the plumbing with the aggregate material. Consequently, the flexible piping used with polymeric basins can be crushed or damaged by the aggregate material. For this reason, more traditional rigid piping continues to be used for these aggregate basins which makes fabrication of a tightly packed jet cluster difficult and time consuming, if not entirely impossible due to space constraints.